Using the browser extension to discover apps
Use the Trelica browser extension to discover and monitor business app usage.
You can use the Trelica browser extension to discover apps that your employees are using and enrich app usage data. The browser extension is designed to be used alongside other discovery sources, such as identity integrations and spend integrations.
When added to an employee's browser, the extension monitors the sites that a user is visiting and sends details of any business app usage to Trelica. This is useful for discovering instances of "shadow IT"; by identifying business apps that your employees are accessing and monitoring how frequently they log in to them, you can determine how widely an app is used and make informed decisions about licensing and management.
The browser extension does not record visits to non-business apps or websites and it does not inspect the contents of webpages nor look at cookies or credentials (such as usernames and passwords).
Trelica browser extension is available for:
- Mozilla Firefox - coming soon
When a user has logged into Trelica from the browser extension, the date, time and duration of each visit to a recognized business app is recorded and sent to Trelica. You can specify how frequently data is sent and allow users to prevent data for specific apps from being sent to Trelica. For more information, see Configuring the browser extension below.
To collect business app data using the browser extension you will need to:
- Configure the extension settings.
- Add users to Trelica so that they can log in to the browser extension.
- Add the extension to users' browsers, either by asking users to add it themselves or by deploying it to managed browsers in your domain.
- Ask users to log in to Trelica via the browser extension.
If the browser extension is installed but the user is not logged in to Trelica, no business app data will be sent to Trelica for that user.
Before asking users to use the browser extension, you may want to modify the default data collection options from the Browser extension settings page.
Configuring the browser extension settings.
By default, users can tell the extension to ignore particular sites. This is useful if the extension records a site that the user does not consider to be a business app.
Ignoring a site only affects the data collected by that user's browser extension; if other users from your organization visit the same site and do not ignore it, that usage data will be sent to Trelica.
To prevent users from being able to ignore sites in this way, click Opt out to expand the section, clear the checkbox and then click Save.
By default, usage data is forwarded to Trelica after 24 hours. This gives users an opportunity to review the sites that have been tracked and tell the extension to ignore any sites that are not business-related. If a user ignores a site after data has been sent to Trelica, no further data will be sent.
To control how frequently data is sent to Trelica, click Sync frequency to expand the section, select an option or set a custom frequency, and then click Save.
If you have not previously invited the majority of your organization's employees to use Trelica (for example, in order to give them access to the App hub), you will need to invite individuals to create accounts so that they can log in to the browser extension. This ensures that the data collected by the browser extension is associated with individuals in your organization so that you can see who is using each app and how frequently they do so.
If you have configured an IdP integration, your organization's employees should be listed on the People view. To invite an individual to Trelica:
- 1.Open the People view. The Trelica user column indicates whether or not a person already has a Trelica account.
- 2.For each individual that you want to invite, click the menu icon and select Invite.
- 3.Select the Trelica user role that you want to give to the user. For employees who do not need access to app details, we recommend using the App hub user role. For more information about the available roles, see Roles.
- 4.Click Invite. An email is sent to the user, inviting them to complete the registration process.
Inviting someone to join Trelica from the People view.
🧙♂️ If you have configured single sign-on, your users will be able to log in to Trelica and the browser extension via your IdP.
You can ask users to add the extension to their own browser from the browser's web store or add-on directory. You can copy the relevant link above or from the Browser extension settings page.
Alternatively, you can use domain management tools to deploy the extension to all managed devices or browsers in your organization. For more information about using Google Workspace to deploy the extension to managed Chrome browsers, see Deploying with Google Workspace.
Once the extension has been added, you need to ask users to log in to Trelica from the extension so that their usage data can be associated with their profile.
To give users more information about how to log in, the data that is collected by the extension, and how to ignore particular websites, you can refer them to Browser extension - information for users.
Business app usage data collected by the browser extension is sent to Trelica where it is combined with data from other sources to give you an accurate picture of SaaS usage within your organization.
To see which apps have been tracked by the extension, open the Applications view and filter the list to show apps with a Source of Browser extension.
Filtering the apps list to show only apps with browser extension as a source.
Click an app to open the details view. Select the Users tab to see who is using the app; if usage was recorded by the browser extension, this is indicated by the extension icon in the Sources column.
App users page with the browser extension listed as a data source for some users.
🧙🏿♂️ If you discover apps in use that you were previously unaware of, consider adding a direct integration to Trelica so that you can build a more accurate picture of how the app is being used.
You can see whether a user has added and logged in to the browser extension from their profile. From the People view, select an individual to view their details. If they are using the browser extension, it is listed under Sources and on their Applications tab.
Person details page with browser extension listed as a data source.
The extension is only listed as a source once Trelica has received usage data from it. By default, the first usage data is sent 24 hours after a user has visited a business app.
Last modified 10mo ago